One of the best ways to read a biblical story is to visualize it as if you were a movie director. It helps you understand the complexities and deeper meanings the author sought to convey. Let me show you what I mean. First, we have the setting. Jesus and the 12 disciples sail into a tiny port town. They can see small houses a synagogue, and on the outskirts of the city are a few ugly-looking shacks where the sick and outcasts are forced to dwell. We see Jesus as a rock star. When he sails into town, everyone shows up. Maybe he will reveal life’s most profound meanings, heal someone cast out a demon, or live up to his rep and get into a verbal sparring match with the religious authorities.
People flood from their houses, rushing to meet Jesus on the dock. Among them is a well-dressed man in flowing robes. People defer to him, making space for him. His name is Jairus, a synagogue leader.
Although desperation is on his face, he follows the conventions of deportment. He bows at Jesus’ feet, begging, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please lay hands on her; hurry so that she may live.” Mark tells us that he kept repeating this throughout the scene, so we’ll need to remember to put these words in Jairus’s mouth again.
We pan over to the disciples, high-fiving each other, saying, “This is most triumphant, dude! Our movement needs influencers like Jairus. Win him over, and you’ll win over the whole town. It’s about time Jesus made friends with a religious leader instead of arguing with them all the time.”
Jairus leads Jesus to his home, and the disciples act like the secret service, clearing the way. Hurry, hurry. Everyone is aimed at the house, and the musical score pounds urgently.
Suddenly, Jesus stops and turns around. The music stops. Everyone takes a couple more steps before they turn to see what’s the matter. There is annoyance on Jairus’ face. What? No, keep going. This way, Jesus, she’s at the point of death. The disciples pull, nudging him forward. But he’s not budging.
“Who touched me?” he asks, and the disciples must be thinking, “What? A whole crowd is pressing in, and lots of people touched you. Focus, focus, Lord. The little girl.” Jairus repeats, “The point of death, come lay hands on her.”
But Jesus stays put. Critical seconds drain away. He surveys the crowd — tick, tick, tick. Suddenly, a woman emerges. She looks terrible. She is dirt poor because she had been ill for 12 years and spent all her money on doctors but did not get any better. Her clothes are old and ragged. Her eyes are downcast, and she throws herself at Jesus’ feet with fear and trembling.
We cut away from this scene to learn about her backstory. You know the audience is not going to like it. This interruption to the story about the little girl is troubling. Why is Jesus wasting precious time?
But we have to learn about this woman. She had been hemorrhaging for 12 years, which is polite Bible talk for a menstrual condition. We can see her going from doctor to doctor, selling off her possessions one by one until her house is empty and she is forced to live in a squat little shack to pay for her medical treatments, which would include drinking all kinds of herbal concoctions and applying exotic lotions and creams.
Like everyone else, we can see her 12 years earlier going to the synagogue to pray for healing. But our friend Jairus is at the door. Just behind him is his wife and newborn baby. As leader of the synagogue, it’s Jairus’ job to keep this woman from getting in. Menstruating women were considered unclean, Scripture passages backed this up. The rule book did not allow her to worship in the synagogue. For 12 years, it was Jairus’ job to keep her out of the synagogue.
We show the tears in her eyes when she is rejected and slinks to the outskirts of town. After years of isolation on the fringe of society, she hears that Jesus is coming to town. Maybe he could make things right. But she cannot approach Jesus directly. Women weren’t allowed to do that; synagogue leaders could, but not her. She’d have to blend into the crowd. Maybe if she could just touch his clothes, that would be enough. Some power might leak out of this man who was proclaiming a new way of looking at the world where religion is not about keeping people out and telling them what’s wrong with them but about welcoming and blessing them. We see her in the crowd, waiting ahead for Jesus, and when he passes by, she lurches and falls and grazes her fingertips on the hem, the very bottom part of his robe.
She feels power transmitted to her fingertips. Maybe she looks at them as she rises quickly. Jesus turns around and wants to know who made this inappropriate sneak attack, robbing him of some of his power. “Who touched me?” he asks.
Somehow, she has the guts to tell her story. Jesus lifts his hand in blessing and says, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole, so go in peace and be healed of your disease.” The key word is daughter. You can see eyes widen and jaws drop in the crowd.
All the focus has been on Jairus’ daughter. Now, we see Jesus’ daughter. N ot that he was the bio-dad. He said in the previous chapter that whoever does the will of God is a member of his family. Sometimes, he called his own mother “Woman.” But this outcast woman who considered herself beyond God’s grace is called a daughter. This woman, the religious community made me feel that she was beyond mercy and was called a daughter. This woman who dared to risk the condemnation of religious leaders to act on her faith and believed that she could belong is given healing. It’s fascinating.
Just then, some people make their way through the crowd. The interruption has taken too much time. Jairus daughter, they announce with breaking voices, is dead. Because of this woman, the daughter is gone. Jairus, overcome with emotion, drops to his knees; sobs can be heard as people bury their chins in their chests. Some clench their fists in anger that this woman took the healing that belonged to the innocent little girl.
Jesus said, “Why are you troubled, do not fear, believe.”
The movement picks up again. Jesus gets to the house and says that the girl is not dead but only asleep. People laugh at him. He kicks everyone out of the house except three disciples. That would be a fun scene to show Jesus puffing up, and ordering people who had laughed at him, “Get out!”
He takes the girl by the hand and tells her to rise. Her little eyes open and blink heavily in the light and Jesus helps her to her feet. Everyone is amazed. It’s all smiles in the crowd. And Jesus says give her something to eat.
There’s one part of the story I’m not sure how to get across in our movie. And that is the fact that the girl is 12 and the woman has been suffering for 12 years. In the Bible the number 12 is code language to represent the faith community. There were 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples. And people thought that maybe their religion had died, or it was sick unto death. They had the same concerns we do about passing the faith onto the next generation. Where are they? But Jesus says it’s only asleep, it can rise.
But in order for religion to be healthy and rise up, it has to deal with the people it used to cast out. It has to deal with women and men and children that have been made to feel as if God cursed rather than blessed them. It has to find a way to help and advocate for those who are sick and poor and excluded. That is the function of people of faith, that is our gig, our purpose and any faith community that forgets it is sick unto death. But with Jesus’ help we can rise.
I think the reason the hemorrhaging woman story is inserted into the other story is because Jairus had to learn his lesson about all of this before the story could move forward. The privileged man who was part of the religious system needed to get less rule based and more grace based.
This is all a compelling story. Where do you connect with it today?
Maybe you are like the woman, feeling excluded, sick, on the fringes, trying to summon up enough faith to reach out. Here the words of Christ who calls you “Daughter” or “Son” in this very moment. Rise and be well.
Maybe you are like the disciples annoyed by someone who isn’t very important while you are on your way to do something you deem more worthy of your time. One thing I’ve learned from this story is that often the most important things we do during a day come to us as an interruption. If we treat people as interruptions that comes across, we are not gracious, we do not give blessings but only perpetuate the curses. Learn of Jesus and learn to welcome the interruptions. The rest of life is your plan, let God surprise you with interruptions. Greet them with joy, see what God may be trying to teach you in the moment.
Maybe you are like Jairus, you’ve seen yourself as security issuing judgments about who is pure enough for God’s grace. Standing at the door quoting scripture that hurts rather than heals. Let this story interrupt your decisions and turn you into a person of welcome and extravagant hospitality, let it sink in. Maybe you are so accustomed to your privilege that you don’t even see the hurting people blending into the crowd because you are so absorbed with your own need.
Or maybe you are like him with your urgent needs and cannot believe why it is taking so long for him to act on your behalf. Perhaps you need to slow down, learn from what he is trying to teach before the story can move forward.
Perhaps you are the little girl spiritually asleep, lifeless. Here the word of your Lord today, Rise up. Rise up and see the blessings. Rise up and be filled with faith and peace. Rise up to welcome the stranger, to love the unloved and hurting. Rise up and face your fears, your demons, your behaviors your regrets your insecurities, for the sickness is not unto death.
Rise. Rise. Rise.